Under the color of law

Chapter 8

Detective Bobby Sloan returned to headquarters, took possession of an empty office assigned to the crime prevention unit, and spent the rest of the morning and part of the early afternoon going through the paperwork in Father Mitchell's briefcase, viewing some of the videocassettes found in the locker at the college, and sampling excerpts of what looked to be at least ten hours of audio tapes Mitchell had also stashed in his briefcase.

In a general way the video- and audiotapes Sloan previewed explained a good deal about Mitchell's research. The priest had been probing into intelligence matters. But it was hard to see what his focus was.

Mitchell had conducted interviews about the U. S. Army School of the Americas, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the National Security Agency, the U. S. Army Intelligence and Security Command-Sloan now knew what INS COM stood for-and a host of other agencies that included the departments of state, treasury, and defense.

A number of interviews touched on a government institution he'd never heard of before, a Joint Military Intelligence College that offered undergraduate and graduate spy-craft degrees to care fully selected military and civilian intelligence personnel.

It was all eye-opening, informative stuff about the scope of government intelligence operations. But it was also all over the map, and Sloan couldn't get a handle on what the priest had been trying to accomplish.

However, he was willing to bet the farm that Mitchell's murder was directly tied to his research. That at least gave Sloan a start on figuring out the motive for the killing.

Mitchell had kept copies of some important personal and professional documents in the briefcase. His army retirement papers showed that his last posting had been at the School of Americas, at Fort Benning, Georgia. There was a letter from the secretary of the army to Mitchell's mother, expressing condolences regarding the death of the priest's brother, another letter from a U. S. embassy official that reported the colonel had been attacked and killed by bandits, and a copy of the resignation letter Father Mitchell had submitted to the college where he'd been teaching. The priest had quit his job a month after his brother's death.

Sloan pawed through an envelope stuffed with credit-card, hotel, and airplane-ticket receipts. Mitchell had been doing some whirlwind traveling during the last three months, taking short trips to places like San Antonio and Tucson, and many longer jaunts to Washington, D.C." and Georgia.

Sloan arranged everything by date to get a clear picture of Mitchell's schedule, then totaled up the charges, which ran over five thousand dollars. Bobby wondered how the priest had been able to pay for such travel on a retired major's pension.

Sloan fanned through a pocket notebook filled with the names and addresses of people Mitchell had kept track of. He'd known a hell of a lot of folks scattered all across the country. Some addresses correlated with the places Mitchell had recently visited, some names had stars or checkmarks next to them, and some entries had been crossed out.

Bobby put the notebook aside and went through two correspondence files from the briefcase. One held six years' worth of letters Mitchell had written to the secretary of the army requesting more specific information about the death of his brother under the Freedom of Information Act. Each request had been turned down. All Mitchell had received for his efforts was an official army criminal investigation report that basically repeated the facts contained in the letter from the embassy.

The second file contained letters to the Armed Forces Records Center in St. Louis demanding the release of his brother's military service records.

Those requests also had been rejected. There was, however, a recent letter from a former officer who'd served with Mitchell's brother when he had been deputy commandant at the U. S. Army School of the Americas.

The correspondent wrote that he had no information that would be helpful to the priest but wished him good luck with his research.

From his time in the service Sloan knew that immediate family members of deceased veterans were, by law, entitled to those records. What was the army hiding about the brother's death?

Mitchell had kept his checkbook in a briefcase sleeve. Sloan scanned through the entries. Two five-thousand-dollar deposits had been made the past three months.

His retirement pay went into the account automatically. From the looks of the checks Mitchell wrote, he lived frugally and was a heavy supporter of a group that politically opposed the continued operation of the School of the Americas.

Sloan filled out evidence inventory sheets and then got on the Internet and started surfing for supplemental information that might help him fill in some of the blanks. When he was done, he checked the clock.

Day shift was over, and he hadn't even started writing up his supplemental report.

Bobby decided to talk to the chief first. He dialed Kerney's extension and the chief picked up immediately. Sloan started talking about Mitchell's briefcase filled with intelligence goodies. Kerney cut him off and told him to meet him in the staff parking lot with the evidence in five minutes.

Sloan toted everything out the back door. The chief was waiting in his unit with the motor running and the passenger door open. He got in, wondering where in the hell they were going and why. Kerney's jaw was tightly set and his mouth formed a thin, compressed line. Sloan decided it was probably better not to ask.

Kerney took Sloan to the downtown library, where they settled into the second-floor audiovisual room. Bobby gave him a quick review of the Mitchell evidence.

"Also, Brother Jerome told me that an envelope mailed to Father Mitchell was missing from his office," Sloan said, "so we've got a connection between the homicide and the burglary."

Kerney gazed out the window that overlooked Washington Avenue and the bank building across the way.

"Don't you think it's odd that we have two homicides involving national security?" Kerney asked.

"According to what I heard, the feds took that issue off the table in the Terrell case," Sloan said.

Kerney turned away from the window.

"Two things you told me put it back on the table. During his military career Ambassador Terrell served as commandant of the School of the Americas and later was the commanding general of army intelligence."

"That's interesting," Sloan said.

"Do you think Mitchell was trying to get something on Terrell?"

Kerney sat in a straight-back chair and shook his head.

"I don't know.

Mitchell's brother was at the School of the Americas long after Terrell's retirement. But he was killed while serving as a military attache in Venezuela.

That raises two additional points. Embassy attache assignments are heavily geared to intelligence gathering. And Terrell is a member of a trade mission to South America."

"You're racking up a whole lot of coincidences here, Chief."

"Give me your thoughts on Mitchell's research."

"It's a real slumgullion. At first I thought Mitchell was concentrating his investigation on the murder of his brother in South America, six years ago. That seemed to be what got him started. He left his teaching position right after his brother's death and wrote dozens of letters to the army trying to get more information about it.

The army stonewalled him."

Sloan took a sip of coffee from the jumbo-size takeout container the chief had bought him on the way to the library. It was cold and bitter tasting.

"But when you watch the videos you'll see that they jump from one subject to another, so I don't know where Mitchell was going."

"We can start with the fact that Mitchell didn't buy the story of his brother's death," Kerney said.

"Okay, at the very least a cover-up took place," Bobby said.

"Maybe the priest's brother wasn't whacked by banditos who simply wanted his cash and his car. But based on what I saw on the videotapes I watched, that theme isn't even touched on. There's an interview that concentrates on vague accusations that the army has been burying a sizable amount of money for the last five years in DEA aid to Colombia.

There's a Q and A with a U. S. Treasury official about drug money being laundered through banks in Panama. In another tape a retired army major is talking about the time he spent at the Fort Benning School of the Americas with the priest's brother that doesn't reveal diddly."

"Let's watch the tapes," Kerney said.

Some of the videos were brief, and none ran over twenty minutes. An ex-Canadian intelligence officer talked about the National Security Agency sending cryptologists to Brazil for an unknown purpose. A former DEA agent revealed that the Joint Military Intelligence College had developed a field-intelligence and drug interdiction curriculum for the Ecuadoran army. A professor of economics explained "dollarization," an effort to persuade Latin American countries to join Panama and Ecuador in adopting U. S. currency as their official legal tender.

A treasury official detailed information about a financial crimes advisory on Panamanian drug-laundering schemes. An expert on international banking summarized the ways in which large sums of money were electronically transferred between foreign and domestic financial institutions.

Kerney quickly ran through the tapes Sloan had previewed and then clicked off the VCR with the remote.

"What do you think, Chief?" Bobby asked.

"I've been thinking about geography," Kerney said.

"Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Brazil. If I'm not mistaken, all of those countries border Colombia. Some political analysts are saying that Colombia could be our next Vietnam. Half of the country is controlled by rebels, including a lot of the coca-growing regions.

Maybe the government is getting all their ducks lined up before they send in the troops. That kind of planning can't be done openly. It would raise too much of a stink here at home."

"A secret trade mission might be the way to go," Sloan said.

"I'd say a major clandestine military and civilian intelligence operation has been launched," Kerney said.

"A trade mission could well be part of that strategy."

"We always seem to come back around to the ambassador," Sloan said. His butt felt numb. He shifted in his chair to ease the discomfort.

"It does seem that way," Kerney said. He straightened the leg with the blown-out knee and rubbed the sore tendons.

Sloan yawned.

"This stuff about banking, money laundering, and international finance may have something to do with cutting off the drug money flowing in and out of Colombia."

"Maybe so," Kerney said.

"Without money the jefes couldn't fund their private armies and pay off the rebel forces they do business with."

"So what did Father Mitchell learn that the government didn't want him to know?"

"That's what we've got to find out," Kerney said.

"Have you dug up any more background about him?"

"A couple of things. Like his brother, Mitchell pulled a tour of duty at Fort Benning. In fact, that was his last post before he retired. He could have probably stayed on active duty if he'd wanted to. I cruised the Internet and learned that army chaplains are in real short supply.

He made some trips back to Benning recently, but I haven't found any documentation by Mitchell about it yet. Maybe something will surface on the audiotapes.

"Mitchell ran up travel expenses of over five thousand dollars in the last three months. You don't have that kind of money to throw around on a retired major's pay, especially if you're sending half your pension to a group called the School of the Americas Vigil Committee. I think somebody helped Mitchell out financially. He made two recent deposits totaling ten thousand dollars."

"Follow the money, Bobby," Kerney said.

"First thing in the morning."

"What's this School of the Americas Vigil Committee all about?"

Sloan swallowed hard and pinched his throat to cut off the bile.

"It's run by a peace and human rights advocacy group. They want the school shut down and refer to it as 'the school of assassins." They say it violates U. S. foreign policy, doesn't promote democracy, and infringes on human rights. If that's true, I can see their point."

"Let's wrap it up," Kerney said, eyeing Sloan's tired face.

"I want you to make a complete copy of everything we've got-the papers, letters, videos, and audiotapes-everything. Do it first thing tomorrow and get it to me. Nothing goes into evidence until I say so."

"You've got it, Chief."

"Tell no one in the department about this," Kerney added.

Sloan nodded.

Kerney helped Sloan pack up. They carried everything downstairs, where library staff were roaming around announcing closing time.

"Remember when this building was city hall?" Sloan asked.

Kerney nodded.

"City hall, the jail, and a fire station combined."

"Doesn't seem that long ago," Sloan said.

"Stop it, Bobby. You're making me feel old. Let me buy you a late dinner."

Sloan rubbed his gut.

"No, thanks, Chief. I've had this gas thing in my gut all day."

Kerney drove through the quiet plaza. The stores were closed, only a few people were out, and traffic consisted of one car turning onto Palace Avenue. Crystal snowflakes drifted slowly past the streetlamps, glistened briefly in the soft light, and then melted away on wet sidewalks. At night downtown Santa Fe still felt like a small town.

After a quick run down Cerrillos Road he dropped Sloan at headquarters and headed home. He couldn't shake the notion that Charlie Perry and Agent Applewhite might be staying on in Santa Fe to monitor the Mitchell homicide investigation. What else was there for them to tidy up? If that proved to be the case, Kerney didn't know how he'd react.

He decided he would have to play it by ear and watch his back as much as possible.

Charlie Perry waited until the lights went out in the second floor room of the public library before stopping the tape recorder. Applewhite pulled out her earphone and shut down the video camera.

"That's it," Perry said.

"We only got half of it," Applewhite said.

In the darkness Perry gave Applewhite a nasty look. After tailing Kerney and the detective to the library and spotting them with binoculars in a second-floor room, he'd hustled to find a way to gain fast entry to the bank office building across the way. Fortunately, the Internal Revenue Service housed criminal-investigation agents in the building, so he'd been able to get in after cooling his heels waiting for the man with the keys.

Perry had called Applewhite as soon as he had a fix on Kerney's location. She'd breezed in well after Charlie had the sensitive long range directional recording equipment up and running. Where she'd been all day and what she'd been doing, Perry didn't want to know.

"This cop may not be as dumb as you make him out to be," Applewhite said.

"Anybody can connect the dots," Perry replied.

"Even Kerney."

"You sound agitated, Charlie," Applewhite said as she lowered the blinds and turned on the lights. Her look reminded Charlie of his second-grade teacher just before she unleashed a scolding.

Perry gave her the finger.

"Calm down, Charlie," Applewhite said, dismissing the gesture.

"All I'm saying is that, based on what we heard, Kerney's deductions are reasonable. But he doesn't have anywhere near the information he needs to figure out what's going on. The last remaining link in the paper trail between Phyllis Terrell and Father Mitchell has been secured."

"You should have been the one to do the job at Brother Jerome's office,"

Charlie said.

"No, I take that back, you would have pistol whipped him."

Applewhite smiled sarcastically and shook her head.

"Let's wrap it up for the night, shall we?"

"What about the evidence Detective Sloan has in his possession?" Perry asked.

"I'll take care of that," Applewhite replied.

"How?"

Applewhite crossed her heart and smiled.

"I promise there will be no pistol whipping, Charlie," she said, although the idea obviously held some appeal.

Bobby Sloan didn't get home until late. After Kerney dropped him at headquarters, he'd decided to get everything duplicated while the building was quiet. That way he didn't have to worry about when he could get to use the copy machine or the other equipment he needed.

Since nothing had yet been entered into evidence, he stowed the copies at the office and carried the originals home.

He stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and slipped into his threadbare terry-cloth robe. It had holes in the armpits and a stain of red wine down the front that had never completely washed out. But Bobby wasn't about to give it up, no matter how much his wife, Lucy, complained about it.

When Sloan got home late he always left the living room lights off and used the small bathroom at the far end of the house so he wouldn't disturb Lucy. He ran the towel over his balding head, brushed his teeth, turned off the light, saw a thin glow seeping under the bathroom door, and silently cursed. He'd woken Lucy up anyway.

He padded down the hall to the living room, ready to apologize, only to find Lucy sitting on the couch in her nightie staring at Special Agent Applewhite with wide, startled eyes.

Applewhite's coat was pulled back behind her holster to expose her semiautomatic. Her FBI credentials dangled from a cord around her neck.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing here?" Bobby asked.

"Official business," Applewhite said, extending the piece of paper in her hand.

"I have an order from a federal judge requiring you to turn over all evidence pertaining to the murder of Father Joseph Mitchell."

Sloan tore the document out of Applewhite's grip, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Citing what legal authority?" he asked.

"Read the order, Detective," Applewhite responded, "and then give me what I came for."

Sloan read the paperwork. Sections of federal laws Bobby had never heard of were cited. It had national security written all over it. The name of the federal judge and the signature looked valid.

"The order has a no-knock provision," Applewhite said.

"But your wife was kind enough to let me in."

"Get screwed," Sloan said.

"First I'm going to call my chief."

"Go ahead, Detective," Applewhite said, looking around the room while Sloan dialed Kerney's number. The couch, a recliner model facing a large-screen television, had a center console designed to hold remote controls and beer cans.

The wall held cheap, poorly matted prints in do-it-yourself frames. A particularly gaudy image showed a bright pink pony grazing in a blue pasture against a sunflower-yellow sky.

"Nice place you've got here," Applewhite said to Sloan's dumpy, chubby-faced wife.

"Fuck you," Lucy replied sweetly.

The phone brought Kerney out of a deep sleep. He listened to what Sloan had to say and told him to resist Applewhite's attempt to take possession of the evidence until he could speak directly with the judge who'd signed the order.

After confirming by phone that the order was valid, he called Bobby back, told him to comply, and hung up fuming.

He sat in the small living room of his South Capitol cottage, stared at the pencil drawing of Hermit's Peak that Sara had given him as a surprise gift just before they were married, and fought down the impulse to roust Charlie Perry out of his hotel bed and bounce him off the wall a few times. That wouldn't accomplish anything.

In a way Perry and Applewhite had done him a favor. Kerney no longer had any doubt that the two homicides were connected. But that certainty failed to cheer him. He was into quicksand up to his neck, confronting an incredibly sophisticated intelligence apparatus with unlimited resources that could easily squash him.

The red light on his answering machine blinked at him. He'd forgotten to check for messages when he got home. He pushed the play button.

Sara had called wanting to know why he hadn't phoned her as promised.

Kerney stared at the telephone. Calling her back would only make him miss her more than he already did. In truth, the relationship felt like a long distance love affair, not a marriage. When they were together, everything was perfect. But he wanted more than just a weekend or two with her every month.

He went into the bedroom, thinking that it would be best to keep Sara in the dark about his current entanglement with the FBI, especially since he now knew for certain he was under surveillance. Applewhite's appearance at Bobby Sloan's house had made that abundantly clear. Was it directed at him alone, or were other members of his investigative staff getting the same treatment?

He looked around the cramped bedroom. What in the hell was he doing still living here when he could easily afford so much more? And what in the hell was he doing running a police department in need of a major overhaul when he could be settled on a beautiful piece of land living the good life of a gentleman rancher with the freedom to spend more time with Sara? A baby was coming. He should feel happy. Instead, he felt crabby.

He turned out the light, got into bed, and fell asleep, still grouchy.

An early riser, Kerney woke before dawn. His grumpiness lingered as he set up the coffeepot and tromped outside to get the morning newspaper.

Through the bare branches of the trees the sky was a quilt of puffy low gray clouds except on the eastern horizon, which slowly flushed vermilion before quickly turning gold and fading away.

He passed by his landlord's house, which faced the quiet street, found the newspaper on the snow-covered walkway, pulled it out of the protective plastic sleeve, and scanned the front page. There was nothing in the headlines that he absolutely needed to know about.

Never a fan of the daily local press-so much of what got reported was yesterday's canned news from other sources-Kerney subscribed anyway, figuring that as chief he needed to stay current on what did filter into it about community issues.

Inside, he sat at the small table in the galley kitchen, drank the one cup of coffee that his shot-up gut could tolerate in the morning, and quickly roamed through the paper. A wire-service report from Red River caught his attention. Randall Stewart, a Santa Fe stockbroker on a skiing vacation with his family, had been reported missing.

Search-and-rescue, along with the state police, had been called out, but a heavy snowstorm had blanketed the mountains and stalled overnight efforts to find him.

To have Santiago Terjo go missing was one thing. But to lose a second possible informant in the Phyllis Terrell homicide seemed highly improbable.

He called Glenn Bollinger, the Red River town marshal, who'd served under Kerney back in the days when he'd been chief of detectives.

Bollinger told him that although Stewart had yet to be found, the storm had broken and a search team had just started moving up the mountain.

After asking Bollinger to check carefully for foul play, Kerney left a voice message for Helen Muiz at the office to cancel all his appointments. The phone rang when he hung up.

"You've been busy this morning," Sara said.

"I've been trying to get through to you for the last ten minutes."

"The joys of the job," Kerney said.

"Everybody wants to talk to the police chief. I'm sorry I didn't call you back last night."

"You're forgiven. Are we still on for the weekend?"

"I think so."

"That's not a firm answer, Kerney."

"I'll free up some time for you."

Sara laughed.

"That's very considerate. Do you know what love is, Kerney?"

"Tell me."

"The inability to keep your hands off your sweetie pie. Gotta run.

Another class is about to start."

"I miss you."

"Rest up for the weekend," Sara said.

Sara disconnected and Kerney took off for Red River. *** The curving snow-packed road that followed the Rio Grande River north to Taos made for slow going. Greeted by a clear blue sky, Kerney topped out on the high plateau south of Taos where white-capped mountains dominated to the east and to the west the river cut a deep gorge in the high plains. Snow had rolled down the foothills, cloaked the rangeland, bathed the forest, and drifted against the brown adobe buildings lining the narrow main street that cut through the old part of Taos.

Kerney kept his radio tuned to the state police frequency and monitored the search-and-rescue team's progress. At Questa, a small village economically hammered by the closing of a molybdenum mine, he made the turn for the last ten-mile stretch to Red River just as the report on the state police band came in that Stew art's body had been found. He keyed the microphone, identified himself, and asked the somewhat startled state police officer to leave the body untouched and keep the area clear. Glenn Bollinger cut in at the end of Kerney's transmission and said he had the scene secured.

The walls of the narrow valley pinched together as Kerney ran a silent code three, pushing his unit to the limit on the icy pavement. He passed a mountainous slag pile that had polluted the nearby river for years while mine operators kept insisting that the government's environmental studies were flawed.

The hills closed in around him, hiding the mountains. Wooded slopes buried in fresh powder lined the small river that gave the town its name and hid the watercourse from view. He drove into the village and the valley widened to reveal a towering sub alpine peak with gleaming ski runs glaring white under a full sun. The state highway cut through the town, spoiling the spaghetti-Western motif of the buildings that had sprung up as the local merchants discovered there was more gold to be mined from the pockets of Texas tourists than from the veins of ore left in the mountains.

Kerney pulled into the ski-area parking lot, where he spotted Glenn Bollinger standing at the bottom of the kiddie run. Bol linger waved to him in a hurry-up motion when he got out of the car.

Kerney didn't know what had Bollinger so excited, but he did know that the full-size sedan following him from Santa Fe had turned back at the Questa intersection. He put a small evidence kit he'd taken from the glove box in his coat and crossed the parking lot.

Bundled up against the cold, Glenn Bollinger watched Kerney move carefully across the icy parking lot, favoring his bum leg. He thought back to the time Kerney had been shot by a drug dealer in a Santa Fe barrio. Bollinger had been in the neighborhood doing a burglary follow-up when the officer-down call came in on the radio. He'd arrived at the scene within minutes, to find Officer Terry Yazzi kneeling over an unconscious Kerney, trying to stem the blood flow from a stomach wound that looked fatal. A bullet had also shattered Kerney's knee.

Yards away lay the lifeless body of the drug dealer, with two center-mass shots in the chest. Critically wounded, Kerney had put the asshole down before going into shock and passing out.

Nobody in the department expected Kerney to recover, let alone resurrect his career, yet somehow he did both. Bollinger found it all totally amazing.

Kerney looked good, Bollinger decided, as he came closer. A little older perhaps, but still fit. His cold-weather gear consisted of blue jeans, a felt cowboy hat, and pair of sturdy hiking boots that showed beneath a rancher's-style three-quarter-length winter coat. He's still doing the cowboy thing, Bollinger thought to himself. Of course, he'd been born to it.

"Damn, I'm glad you called me," Bollinger said with a smile as Kerney drew near.

"If you hadn't, Stewart's death would've been written off as accidental.

Instead I've got myself a homicide. First one since I've been here."

"How was he murdered?" Kerney asked, shaking Bollinger's hand.

"Blunt trauma to the head, made to look like he slammed into a tree at full speed," Bollinger replied.

"His leg hit the tree, all right; you can see little bits of bark in the gash and the blood around the wound, along with pine needles on his clothing below his waist. But the head wound shows only bruising and a deep laceration, with no foreign matter imbedded in the flesh. The new snow kept everything nice, clean, and frozen. There was nothing at the scene that pointed to a collision between Stewart's head and the tree."

Bollinger grinned.

"To the search-and-rescue guys it looked like just another dumb skier who went too fast down a mountain, lost control, and wiped out. The medical examiner thought so too."

"Who's your ME?" Kerney asked.

"We've got several. The guy who took the call is a former Taos County deputy sheriff. You know that department's reputation. Need I say more?"

"Any other physical evidence?"

"Nope. About a foot and a half of new snow fell starting yesterday morning, and the runs were groomed at four this morning before the search-and-rescue team started out. We found no tracks or footprints.

I've got the ski run closed and the crime scene cordoned off."

"Was anyone skiing with Stewart?" Kerney asked.

"His wife said he went up the mountain alone."

"Has she been told?"

"Yeah, but only that her husband is dead, not that he was murdered."

"Where is she?"

"At my girlfriend's place with her two boys."

"You've got a girlfriend, Glenn?"

Bollinger grinned again.

"Had to, Kerney. The winters up here are just too cold and the nights are too long. I hear you got married."

"Had to," Kerney replied with his own grin.

"The woman was just too irresistible."

Bollinger gestured at the ski lift.

"Want to take a ride to the top? The view is real pretty."

Kerney eyed the mountain. It looked extremely cold and uninviting. He had been raised on a ranch in the desert basin of the Tularosa, and while he found winter scenes aesthetically pleasing, he didn't like to do anything more than look at them from a distance.

"Just don't make me ski down that mountain," he said.

Bollinger chuckled.

"We'll get you down safe and sound. But if you come up on your days off, I'll give you some lessons and have you skiing in a couple of hours."

"Not on that slope or on this knee," Kerney replied, tapping his right leg.

"That leg won't keep you from mastering the kiddie run, Kerney."

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

"Care to tell me what made you suspicious about Stewart's disappearance?"

"Its probably better if you don't know," Kerney said.

Bollinger's entire contingent of three officers controlled the crime scene, which consisted of keeping a well-equipped group of searchers far away from the body at the edge of the ski run. Standing in a tight circle, the men were jawing over the homicide with a state police officer and the medical examiner, and sipping coffee out of insulated, covered mugs.

Kerney got introduced around and then trudged with Bollinger through the snow to the yellow tape surrounding Stewart's body. There were footprints all around the corpse and the body had been moved from its original position. Except where the snow had been carefully cleaned away from his forehead, Stewart's face resembled a stark white frozen plaster cast. The leg wound had been revealed in a similar fashion.

Glenn told him the scene had been photographed, including a number of close-up shots of the wounds, and the snow he'd removed to expose the wounds had been saved in evidence vials for further analysis.

With Bollinger following, Kerney stepped over the crime-scene tape, knelt next to the body, and studied Stewart's face. The hard freeze and new snow had kept swelling around the wound to a minimum, The bleeding out of one ear looked like a long solidified dark crystal droplet. The forehead laceration showed a slightly angled horizontal groove and one circular imprint in the skin. The pattern injury was unusual.

Kerney looked up at Bollinger.

"I noticed that too," Glenn said.

"What do you think?" Kerney asked.

Bollinger unholstered his semiautomatic sidearm.

"Thumped hard with one of these is my guess."

"Mine too," Kerney said.

"I want the body taken to Santa Fe for an autopsy and a forensic work-up. But don't transport right away." He handed Bollinger the small evidence kit.

"Have your search and-rescue people thaw him out enough so the ME can take hair, blood, and skin samples for me."

"We'll put him in a toasty ambulance and warm him up," Bollinger said.

He holstered his weapon and looked quizzically at Kerney.

"Should I even bother asking what you're hoping to learn?"

"Probably not," Kerney said. The knee tortured him as he stood up.

"You did a good job here, Glenn. Can you hold off on telling the news media or anyone else who might be interested that Stewart was murdered?"

Bollinger shrugged.

"If I'm asked, I'll say we're waiting on the autopsy report.

How much time do you need?"

"Eight hours will do. More if you can swing it."

"I'll do what I can," Bollinger replied, glancing back at the group that watched impatiently from a distance.

"All of those guys owe me at least one favor. That doesn't mean that the news won't leak out. This is a small town."

"Just try to keep the leak from spreading to Santa Fe too fast," Kerney said.